Mako can hear her heartbeat in her ears. She shouldn't feel this panicky. 53 drops, 55 kills. She has a better than perfect record in sims and combat. The sweaty palms were gone by sim drop 12. The uncontrolled leg tremor by drop 15. The pulse beating its way out of her throat by drop 17. The stomach-clenching fear that this was the last time…well, that hadn't, but she really had believed it, one way or another, before they left for the Breach.
Jake, beside her in the Hummer, seems just as nervous. No one watching him would know it, but she recognizes the signs, the way he used to act before he had to take a test, before Sensei came out of the doctor's office, before he went in to ask his father if he could join the Academy. His fingers are twisted together so tight she think he'll break one, his lower lip is caught in his teeth, and he's staring at nothing. Jake's fear is characterized by stillness, and she hopes he doesn't freeze up in combat. She heard he did it once in a sim, and she doesn't blame him, but she worries about what could happen.
She worries she'll chase another R.A.B.I.T. even more than she worries that Jake will freeze up. She has control of the Onibaba memory now, but it took three more simulated Drifts for her to keep from falling into the memory of what happened after closing the Breach.
She thinks it wouldn't be so strong a memory if she wasn't worried about Raleigh's current well-being. No one has heard anything about him; she asked the Marshal before they took off for the drop. The Seattle police were able to trace his credit card to a small bar just out of downtown, but after that they assumed he'd dumped his wallet, because although the card was used at an electronics store the next morning, the security video was of a young woman in her twenties. Mako doesn't let herself think about the possibility that the reason someone else has Raleigh's cards is that he was robbed, like she saw in her Drift memory…dream…what that was she doesn't know. He's smart enough to dump anything identifying if he wants to disappear.
Why would he want to, though? She knows he was drinking, and quite a bit, from the report she saw on the credit card. She also knows that he left, because the police have the security video from there as well. What they don't know is what happened afterward. It wasn't the most affluent part of town, so some businesses don't even have cameras they could check, or the quality is too poor. It doesn't help that it was dark and raining that night. Once he left the bar, she has no idea where Raleigh went. And that scares her.
She'd thought he was doing better. She remembers the few days right after that disastrous interview, when Raleigh shut himself off from everyone and when she did see him, and accidentally collided with his arm, he flinched. She remembers seeing the blood on his sweaters that he couldn't quite wash out, and smelling alcohol on his breath, and trying to spend as much time as she could with him in the evenings because she knew how easy it would be for him to overdose on those pills he takes for his insomnia. She remembers becoming an Google and WebMD expert in how to respond to a suicide attempt. She remembers desperately tapping into the ghost Drift whenever she woke up in the middle of the night, afraid it would no longer be there.
She remembers long sleepless nights spent with tea and silence and cheesy old Bruce Lee movies (where Mako made snide commentary the whole time on how the fighting wasn't very effective, just because it made Raleigh laugh), and being grateful he at least knew he needed someone on the bad days. Raleigh never wanted to talk about what was wrong, but he knew he needed help. Sleepless nights and two mugs of coffee and dark circles under her eyes were always a small price to pay for the fact that Raleigh woke up alive one more morning.
Now he's alone, or at least she thinks he must be. Knowing him, he probably thinks he did her a favor. He's probably sure she's better off without him, especially now that the war's beginning again. They both knew he'd never be a pilot again, not with his arm. She knows exactly what he would say if she asked him to explain himself. I'm holding you back. You deserve better. Even after everything, she knows Raleigh still thinks of himself as broken, useless, and a failure. She tried to show him she didn't believe that. But since Raleigh was never open with her, she'd assumed it was best not to bring things up with him. Maybe that was a mistake. She just didn't want to make things any worse by reminding him that he was struggling, or making him think she was tired of his issues. I didn't want him to think I wanted to help him because he was being a problem. She knows Raleigh felt badly about her coming and staying all night, and about having the same conversations with her over and over about Yance and Chuck and Sensei. Even though she told him over and over that it wasn't a problem, she got the feeling he didn't believe her.
The vehicle stops and Mako shakes herself out of the blame cycle. She can't do this now. She has a brother to protect and maybe a world to save, again, and Raleigh would really never forgive himself if he was the reason she was distracted and something terrible happened.
Her four top Jaegers are in the launch bays. Gipsy Avenger, Saber Athena, Guardian Bravo, and Obsidian Fury. She built the Jaegers in three matched sets, each group a complimentary fighting team. Fury is the brawn, Athena is smaller but faster and more maneuverable, Bravo is bulky and built to outlast, and Venge brings the fancy weaponry. A new chainsword, twice the efficiency of Mako's first design, and powerful plasmacannons. If this wasn't an emergency, Mako would be thrilled to be taking her out and putting her through her paces.
She bumps Jake's knee with her own, and he glances at her, shoulders hunched and tense. The Marshal wants them dropped and ready to deploy in an hour, and in a few more they'll be at the Breach site. Newt hasn't seen any change since nine p.m. yesterday, but he thinks the widening is cyclic and will begin again around two this afternoon, if his calculations are right. And this time, it will be wide enough to dump Cat 1 or 2s. She's glad it isn't an immediate incursion of monsters like slattern. This almost feels like sim training, where they work you up to the bigger Kaiju by starting with easy targets. Not that she can get complacent about a Cat 1; there are almost always unpleasant surprises with these creatures, and she doubts their creators have been idle. Mako's been building better Jaegers. She's willing to bet the aliens are building better Kaiju.